The Dawning: Ideology Matters

Aug 23, 2011

RUSH: I gotta tell you a little story. I had a meeting after the program yesterday with a regular advisor who helps me in a certain aspect of my life. I have been working with this guy since 1989. He came in, and he said, “You know… Um, I’ve always liked you, but I thought, ‘You’re a broadcaster and you have to embellish, and you’re a little over the top on a lot of things,’ but you know what? You’ve been right.” He is scared to death over the spending.

He started talking to me about the fear he has for what kind of life his kids are gonna have, simply because of what tax rates are gonna have to be to support what’s on the books to be spent in future years. He’s a Northeastern guy, not particularly political. He believes in the ebb and flow: Republicans are gonna run the show then, Democrats are gonna run the show now. “When the Democrats run the show, you do this. When the Republicans run the show, you do that.” Nothing ideological about this guy at all. He just manages his life and his business, “Okay, if the Republicans in power, this is what I do. If the Democrats are in power, this is what I do; and I know in a couple, four, six years it’s gonna change, and you just ride the seesaw.”

Now he told me he feels like he’s on the ground of the seesaw and he ain’t getting back up. I said, “If you’da just been listening to me for these last 22 years, we coulda used you.” How many people are there like that? They’re not ideological. I think the mind-set is, “The country’s so strong, the country is just so powerful, that no one guy can come along and really transform and change it, and the people that run around and say that are kooks.” I told you the night before when I had dinner with another friend who’s much the same way: Grew up in the Northeast and had a business, and he had to deal with whoever was in power, Republicans and Democrats. So he did what he had to do based on who won, and he didn’t care who won or lost. He just had to make sure he had a plan to deal with whoever did win.

Now all of a sudden he’s looking at things differently, and these guys are in their sixties. I think this is happening all over the country. By the way, these two guys, they’re not Tea Party. This is exactly why and how the Tea Party has come to exist as a state of mind, because there are people all over the country saying, “Wait a second, this is not doable! This simply won’t work as America has always operated, as America’s always been,” and both these guys, I hadn’t seen ’em in a while. One of them in like nine months. The attitude was quite flat, flatter than usual. There’s just a general malaise among people who are now in their quest to understand why they have to now consider ideology. They have to consider it.

These guys, for the first time I think, are actually facing and understanding what liberalism is — and I think a whole lot of people are. And I, frankly, folks, as I said: If the election were held today, Obama lose in a landslide. Now, there’s a story here. Where’s this from? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Let me see. Where is this story from? I can’t… Weekly Standard. “GOP Bigs Push Paul Ryan To Run — As Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan comes to a final decision about running for president, several top national conservatives are encouraging him to join the race.” You want to know who they are? Mitch Daniels, Jeb Bush, John Boehner, Jim Jordan, and Bill Bennett are among those urging Paul Ryan to run. What does that tell you?

I ask: What does that tell you? They’re scared to death of Rick Perry. So-called conservative leaders are scared to death of Rick Perry. They’re not asking Paul Ryan to get in there because of Mitt Romney, ’cause Romney’s been the front-runner. They’re… (interruption) What, you think Mitch Daniels and Jeb Bush and Boehner and Bennett know where the strippers are? That have been in contact with Perry? See, people don’t understand what that is if they missed the first hour. There’s an Austin alternative newspaper where a Ron Paul supporter is running a full-page ad: “Have You Ever Had Sex with Rick Perry?” He’s trying to find barmaids and hotties and floozies that have sex with Rick Perry to come forward. So Ryan’s in there saying, “Ah, maybe these people know who the floozies are: Boehner, Mitch Daniels, Jeb Bush, and Bennett.”

When Mitt Romney was the sole front-runner, there was no pressure on Paul Ryan to get in there. This is all Rick Perry, all about Rick Perry. They’re worried about Rick Perry. Several top national conservatives are encouraging Ryan to get in the race ’cause they don’t like the conservative: Rick Perry. Yes, my friends, it’s fascinating, utterly fascinating to track all of this. You know, it is dawning on people. I think the most intelligent way to explain my meeting with the guy yesterday and friend I had dinner with the other night is: I think it’s finally dawning on some people now that the problem in this country is, at the root, political.

You know, a lot of people hate politics. They don’t want to get involved in it, they don’t want to understand it. It just frustrates them to no end. It makes no sense. They think it’s all crooked, think it’s all bought. It’s all lobbyists, it’s all special interests. Even wealthy, accomplished, achieved people want no part of it. The closest they get to it is making donations as protection racket-type things, and that’s it. But it’s now dawning on them that what is happening the country is political, meaning that there are specific political policies that have been put in play that are causing this. That’s what’s beginning to dawn on people.